Darren Kinnard/River Radio Sports Central
HARRISBURG — Harrisburg junior bowler Dalton Wheeler has put together a pretty impressive past five months.
Wheeler finished fourth individually and helped lead the Bulldogs to the state championship in February. He won an 18-game iron man event in Evansville back in April. Then last week, Wheeler earned a spot on the Team USA Junior Developmental squad with a second place finish during a 26-game, five-day qualifying marathon at the Junior Gold Championships in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The top two qualifiers out of the 644 in the 15U field earned the spots on the Team USA developmental squad and will travel to Arlington, Texas next June for a camp.
Wheeler ran into a buzzsaw in the final 16 brackets, dropping his first match to Ryan Carmichael, who rolled a perfect 300 game in the opener.
Now back home, Wheeler is putting in the time at Ross Cottom Lanes, often coming in before the alley opens to practice. Wheeler estimates he rolls the equivalent of 20 games a day.
The hard work is paying off for Wheeler and his teammates who will be trying to make it back to back state championships come February.
Flath just misses qualifying
Also from the Junior Gold Championship in Green Bay, Carterville’s Evan Flath made it to the final round of qualifying in the 18U division. Flath finished 33rd with 5501 pins, 158 pins out of the top 16.
